


these days, in the past

by Entr0py



Category: Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Dysfunctional Family, Flashbacks, Gen, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 03:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13181784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entr0py/pseuds/Entr0py
Summary: Cal had always liked Christmas with his family, and he'd always been a bit of a fool.





	these days, in the past

**Author's Note:**

> My secret santa gift for @caven-malore over on tumblr!

The first of Maven and Cal’s Christmases are good. Or the first that Cal can remember was good, anyway. They were young - Cal was five and Maven merely three - sat together under the tree and giggled away. Elara watched them with hawk eyes, a strange expression on her face, and Father had lavished Cal in attention and presents. It was a good memory, and made Cal feel warm and safe. But there was always Elara’s cold gaze, and Maven, who smiled brighter than Cal had seen in many years but not as bright as a child should on Christmas Day. After the celebration was over, she took Maven close to her chest and cooed over him, not looking in Cal’s direction for the rest of the day.

But it was fine. It was the day Maven got his Flamemakers, and Cal had cheered, delighted that he and his brother matched now. Maven was not as keen-eyed then but could speak unusually well for someone so young.

Maven was… a smart kid.

When Cal was thirteen and Maven eleven, so many things had been different. Maven’s bright smile had softened to something drier and smarter, and his eyes were bright but a little flat. Cal had given Maven some chocolate - Maven had always had cravings for chocolate since he was a kid - and Maven stared at him for a minute with a strange look on his face and then relaxed into a smile. Elara had exchanged an unreadable look with the younger boy. In return, Maven had given him a book on strategy and outcomes of battles of the past. Cal laughed and hugged him. His skin was freezing but quickly heated to warm, and his arms around Cal’s middle were loose and uncertain. That year, Elara had swaddled her son in jewelry and books, hardly sparing Cal a second glance. “Maybe you shouldn’t have those chocolates,” he’d heard her mutter. “Those cravings were so frustrating.”

“Of course, Mother,” Maven had replied. “I’m sorry.”

Two years later, when Cal was seventeen and Maven freshly fifteen and back from the front, there was a strange tension in him. His eyes were glazed and he reacted to things slowly. “Was the front that bad?” Cal had asked him on Christmas, hands hesitating over the diaries of distinguished Silver generals that he’d been hoping to give to Maven to get him into the whole thing. It would have helped them connect surely, but Maven eyed the book with a look of distaste. After realizing Cal had asked him something, Maven smiled easily and shook his head.

“It was good,” Maven said. He sounded genuine and a little wistful for something gone, and so Cal nodded and smiled and dropped it, instead happy to drink and be merry.

“Come, Maven,” he shouted later, after many drinks. “You should dance with us!”

He spun Sonya Iral in his arms, flashing a grin at his brother across the hall, but Maven shook his head with a wry grin. “No way,” he snarked. “I helped you with her at that one ball! That’s enough for a lifetime.” In his hold, Sonya looked offended enough that Cal smothered down his laugh, their skin dancing in bright red and green lights from the bright lights around the hall. Maven sighed, shaking his head again with a tense grin, and Cal wondered when his brother became so smart and snide. It had to be something besides the front, but what?

Sonya Iral twirled in his arms, and Cal let his thoughts vanish as he spun with her.

Cal was twenty and Maven was eighteen. Somewhere, Maven had Mare, and he was hosting a birthday ball. Somewhere, Cal was empty and angry. This was how it had been for a while now.

Cal is twenty-one and Maven is nineteen. It wasn’t so long ago when Cal was nineteen – it feels like it’s been centuries, it feels like it’s been no time at all. They stand on opposite ends of the hall where they’d grown up and played, flames flickering in both of their hands. Maven’s head is tilted, a cruel absence of light in his eyes. Cal tries to compare the image of this Maven and the bright, cheerful Maven of when they were young under the Christmas tree, and even their eyes are different.

Can I fix you? he wants to say. Instead he tells Maven, “Merry Christmas.”

It seems to catch Maven off guard, his eyes briefly going wide, highlighted by the dark, deep circles around them. Then they return to flat, and his face is an emotionless line, apparently deciding that he’ll play this game if Cal will. “Merry Christmas,” he says.

Cal wishes that he was able to read Maven half as good as Mare was. This Maven. Of course, if Mare were here, she’d probably spit at him. “Idiot,” she’d snarl. “Dumb prince. You can’t save him. He’s always been this way.” And she’d call him prince like that, as she always had since she’d ended whatever it was that they had. But she’s still call Maven Maven, because she could always read him better than Cal could. But Cal - no matter how much he wished, he could never find what his brother was thinking. And Maven knew it. Even now, Maven’s eyes were cold and flat, and Cal couldn’t understand him.

He wishes he did. He wishes he did so, so badly.

“Remember when I got you those chocolates?” he forces out, instead of saying these things out loud.

Maven sighs, a bit reluctantly. “I do, yes. What’s your point?”

“You used to love them.” He’s not sure where he’s going with this. “I just – I don’t understand what’s so different now. I don’t understand what was different then.”

Maven shrugs. “Brother dear, you wound me. A boy doesn’t like chocolate for once in his life and you have a little fit. Always so spoiled,” and he shakes his head. “I don’t have time for you and your play-pretend rebellion.”

“But why!” Cal repeats, emphasizing his agony. “Elara is gone, you shouldn’t have to deal with this anymore.”

Maven sets his lips into a thin line, shoves his hands in his pockets, and looks greatly like he’s restraining himself from rolling his eyes, which is quite frankly the most emotive Cal has seen him in years. “It wasn’t just Elara.” He doesn’t question how Cal knows these things, nor does he seem to care how. Can I fix you, Cal wants to plead again, but Maven shakes his head and ends these thoughts as fast as they began. “You’re an idiot, brother, and you always have been. To see you dead would be the greatest present you could ever give me.”

Cal lets his fist drop to his side, feeling something like an emptiness in his chest. He wonders if Maven can relate. Red and green lights dance across the halls, signalling Christmas day, but there is no dancing or joy. Maven isn’t even pretending to smile at him like he used to. He just stares and stares with no emotion, and Cal draws a small flicker of fire from the hole in his heart. It lights and snakes across his fist, a challenge.

Maven smiles, all teeth. He’s even more unrecognizable now; were it not for him constantly saying ‘brother’, Cal could maybe pretend he and the smiling boy under the Christmas tree aren’t the same.


End file.
